This relates generally to electronic devices, and more particularly, to display structures within electronic devices.
Electronic devices such as handheld electronic devices often include displays. For example, a cellular telephone may have a touch screen display that is based on a backlit liquid crystal display unit. This type of display has an array of addressable liquid crystal pixels. A backlight provides light for the display. When the backlight is active, light from the backlight is transmitted through the liquid crystal array for viewing by a user.
Backlights for displays are often based on light-emitting diodes (LEDs). An LED-based backlight includes a light guide plate formed from a material such as polycarbonate and an LED light source. The LED light source emits light into one of the edges of the light guide plate. The light guide plate distributes the LED light through the liquid crystal array.
The liquid crystal array, the light guide plate, and other display structures are typically mounted within a plastic chassis (“p-chassis”). At the edges of the light guide plate, some of the light escapes and strikes the chassis. The chassis has sidewalls that reflect the escaping light back into the light guide plate. The light reflected from the chassis tends to create an undesirable bright stripe of excessive light intensity along the edge of the light guide plate. A masking structure such as an enlarged bezel could be used to block the light in the bright stripe, but large bezels add bulk and tend not to be aesthetically appealing.
It would therefore be desirable to provide improved displays for electronic devices.